South Jersey Tribbles Rabbit Rescue helps rabbits find homes

This story originally appeared on 6abc.

Inside what Valerie Bertsch calls her bunny cafe, there are about a dozen rabbits from Tribbles Rabbit Rescue, all hoping to find loving homes.

Bertsch, a realtor by trade, didn’t set out to be a rabbit rescuer.

She said she always wanted a rabbit. And for her 59th birthday, she decided a bunny would be her husband’s gift to her.

“And I knew nothing. But I thought ‘How hard can this be?’,” she said. “Then she kind of went crazy.”

She reached out to Lori Mills from Tribbles Rabbit Rescue for advice.

Turns out the bunny, adopted from a breeder, just needed to be spayed.

“I’m like, ‘How can I ever thank you?’ She said ‘Yeah, I could really use some help, could you foster a rabbit?’,” said Bertsch.

That one rabbit led to another and another.

Soon, Bertch had gone down the rabbit hole of rescue, converting the garage of her Medford Lakes, New Jersey home into a caf for bunnies.

“People throw them out of car windows, they leave them in cages, unfed and abandoned. There’s no law that protect them in the state of New Jersey.”

Bertsch says the cafe desperately needs dedicated volunteers, along with foster parents and adopters, willing to bring a bunny into their homes.

And she says they’re super smart and a joy to watch.

“It’s just such a cool thing to be able to experience that with another species, if you will,” Bertsch said. “And they’re great pets.”